Bush Campaign Seeks Help From Congregations

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: June 3, 2004

Correction Appended

The Bush campaign is seeking to enlist thousands of religious congregations around the country in distributing campaign information and registering voters, according to an e-mail message sent to many members of the clergy and others in Pennsylvania.

Liberal groups charged that the effort invited violations of the separation of church and state and jeopardized the tax-exempt status of churches that cooperated. Some socially conservative church leaders also said they would advise pastors against participating in such a partisan effort.

But Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush administration, said "people of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other community" and that the e-mail message was about "building the most sophisticated grass-roots presidential campaign in the country's history."

In the message, dated early Tuesday afternoon, Luke Bernstein, coalitions coordinator for the Bush campaign in Pennsylvania, wrote: "The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1,600 `Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis."

In each targeted "place of worship," Mr. Bernstein continued, without mentioning a specific religion or denomination, "we'd like to identify a volunteer who can help distribute general information to other supporters." He explained: "We plan to undertake activities such as distributing general information/updates or voter registration materials in a place accessible to the congregation."

The e-mail message was provided to The New York Times by a group critical of President Bush.

The campaign's effort is the latest indication of its heavy bet on churchgoers in its bid for re-election. Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and officials of Mr. Bush's campaign have often said that people who attended church regularly voted for him disproportionately in the last election, and the campaign has made turning out that group a top priority this year. But advisers to Mr. Bush also acknowledge privately that appearing to court socially conservative Christian voters too aggressively risks turning off more moderate voters.

What was striking about the Pennsylvania e-mail message was its directness. Both political parties rely on church leaders — African-American pastors for the Democrats, for example, and white evangelical Protestants for the Republicans — to urge congregants to go the polls. And in the 1990's, the Christian Coalition developed a reputation as a political powerhouse by distributing voters guides in churches that alerted conservative believers to candidates' position on social issues like abortion and school prayer. But the Christian Coalition was organized as a nonpartisan, issue-oriented lobbying and voter-education organization, and in 1999 it ran afoul of federal tax laws for too much Republican partisanship.

The Bush campaign, in contrast, appeared to be reaching out directly to churches and church members, seeking to distribute campaign information as well as ostensibly nonpartisan material, like issue guides and registration forms.

Trevor Potter, a Washington lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said the campaign's solicitation raised delicate legal issues for congregations.

"If the church is doing it, it is a legal problem the church," Mr. Potter said. "In the past, the I.R.S. has sought to revoke and has succeeded in revoking the tax-exempt status of churches for political activity."

If a member of the congregation is disseminating the information, however, the issue is more complicated. If the congregation had a table where anyone could make available any information whatsoever without any institutional responsibility or oversight, then a member might be able to distribute campaign literature without violating tax laws. But very few churches have such open forums, Mr. Potter said. "The I.R.S. would ask, did the church encourage this? Did the church permit this but not other literature? Did the church in any way support this?"

Mr. Bernstein, the e-mail message's author, declined to comment. Mr. Schmidt, the campaign spokesman, said the e-mail message only sought individual volunteers from among the "friendly congregations," not the endorsements of the any religious organizations or groups.

"The e-mail is targeted to individuals, asking individuals to become involved in the campaign and to share information about the campaign with other people in their faith community," Mr. Schmidt said. "Yesterday, a liberal judge from San Francisco overturned a partial-birth abortion ban which banned that abhorrent procedure. That is an example of an issue that people of faith from across the United States care about."

He said that the Pennsylvania e-mail message was part of a larger national effort. The number of congregations mentioned - 1,600 in just one state - suggests an operation on a vast scale.

But even some officials of some conservative religious groups said they were troubled by the notion that a parishioner might distribute campaign information within a church or at a church service.

"If I were a pastor, I would not be comfortable doing that," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "I would say to my church members, we are going to talk about the issues and we are going to take information from the platforms of the two parties about where they stand on the issues. I would tell them to vote and to vote their conscience, and the Lord alone is the Lord of the conscience."

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the liberal Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that any form of distributing campaign literature through a church would compromise its tax-exempt status. He called the effort "an absolutely breathtakingly large undertaking," saying, "I never thought anyone could so attempt to meld a political party with a network of religious organizations."

In a statement, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal group, called the effort "an astonishing abuse of religion" and "the rawest form of manipulation of religion for partisan gain." He urged the president to repudiate the effort.

In a statement, Mara Vanderslice, director of religious outreach for the Kerry campaign, said the effort "shows nothing but disrespect for the religious community." Ms. Vanderslice continued: "Although the Kerry campaign actively welcomes the participation of religious voices in our campaign, we will never court religious voters in a way that would jeopardize the sanctity of their very houses of worship."

How many congregations or worshippers will choose to cooperate remains to be seen. In an interview yesterday, the Rev. Ronald Fowlkes, pastor of the Victoria Baptist Church in Springfield, Pa., said he had not seen the e-mail message but did not think much of the idea.

"We encourage people to get out and vote," Mr. Fowlkes said, but as far as distributing information through church, "If it were focused on one party or person, that would be too much."

Correction: June 4, 2004, Friday

A front-page article yesterday about efforts by the Bush campaign to enlist help from religious congregations referred incorrectly to Steve Schmidt, who defended the effort. He is a spokesman for the campaign, not for the Bush administration.